Bane of the Blue Screen

They call it the “Blue Screen of Death,” usually an overburdened computer seized by malfunctioning hardware.  Sometimes there are ways to recover from this near death experience; sometimes not, resulting in a desktop that can be used as a massive paperweight.

 

Peering at an unwelcome blank blue screen

For me, it started more than a year ago, my several-year-old desktop happily chugging along with the Win 7 Operating System.  Win 8 had been introduced and I went for a test drive at my local computer store and after a few minutes knew it was not designed for my needs.  Images, video, graphical interfacing, social networking, now seem to dictate everything.  Keyboards will soon disappear (as well as us folks who use them).  One wonders where today’s generation has time to watch all these movies, YouTube ditties, and indulge in multifarious forms of social networking.  What kind of a future does this portend?  Perhaps it is inevitable that computer chips will be implanted in the brain at birth.  No other hardware required, just think a thought and Google reality!

 Back to my blue screen saga.  After witnessing the Win 8 graphics, I was thrilled to stay with my Win 7 computer.  I figured that as I practice sound computer practices, running required updates, actively using antivirus and malware programs, never opening unknown links, cleaning out my computer with an air can, why shouldn’t it just last longer than me?  My Office 2003 programs worked fine, along with Adobe Photoshop and MS Money Sunset Edition, Firefox working efficiently, email accounts flawlessly operating, my printer and scanner in perfect sync.  I was in computer pig heaven.

Soon after my disheartening Win 8 test drive, a sudden warning shot across the bow of battleship desktop.  It would not boot, even in safe mode.  Nerds USA to the rescue.  Turned out to be an enigmatic hardware issue.  One of the memory chips would not work in the slot it’s been in since the computer was new and somehow this failure impacted start up (go figure said Dr. Nerd).  By moving the memory chip to another open slot, voila, back to normal.  However Dr. Nerd said the mysterious nature of the problem led him to believe it might not only happen again, but shuffling the memory chip might not work again as well -- there may be another unknowable hardware issue.

Oh no, Dr. Nerd, I asked, how long does the patient have?  Hard to tell he replied, maybe a month, maybe years!  We discussed Win 8.  He hated it too.

What to do?  First, I have a laptop (Win 7, everything compatible of course), and I regularly back up files an external hard drive, so I can at least function if the computer goes.  But once that happens, it would seem than Win 8 will inexorably invade my life.

An epiphany  --  get a new Win 7 desktop – they should be cheap thanks to the introduction of Win 8!  So I started my search for a good machine at a reasonable price until I discovered new desktops with Win 7 preinstalled were no longer available.  Absolutely no one seemed to be selling one at the time.  I don’t remember how, but I traced one through a HP website link.  It had the bare minimum hard drive and internal memory I require, but it was available!  So I bought it (and it was cheap). 

When it arrived I debated when to set it up.  My old computer was functioning fine, so why fix something not broken?  I put the new computer in a closet thinking that after the summer (that’s last summer) I’d get to it.  Summer came and went.  Lethargy set in.  Wondering whether my old computer would last (forever was my hope) I imagined I heard its hard drive whisper “I think I can, I think I can.”  New game plan:  just make sure everything is backed up.  I now looked at the desktop in my closet as merely an insurance policy.

At the end of February, another warning shot, getting "you have logged on with a temporary profile" on Windows 7“ at start up.  I waited and then restarted the computer and everything worked, but it reminded me that the last full back up to the external hard drive was a couple of months before (doing interim backups on USB thumb drives).  But all these backups were done manually, dragging files to the storage device.  I decided to use the full backup program that comes with Windows 7 and initiated that.  My understanding is that would allow me to restore my files on my existing machine in the exact same configuration.

It took hours to back up to the hard drive, but mission accomplished.  I then resumed the use of thumb storage USBs for interim backups

Then early last week, the dreaded blue screen with a message that begins "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer…”  From there, nothing seemed to work, even safe mode start up although I was able to get into the HP diagnostic program which indicated a hard disk failure.

Breathe easy, I thought, you have back up files, a new (actually by now, old) computer in your closet.  It just means time reinstalling programs and data.  But to be on the safe side, I called my Nerd guy.  Think you can do an old disk to new disk transfer even though I’m getting this fatal message?  Don’t know until I try.  So we fixed a time for his visit, with the understanding I first set up the “new desktop” and install the programs I need, not to mention the updates.

So finally I unpacked a computer I had received more than a year before.  Everything was there.  After connecting, power up!  Eureka, everything functions, went through all the preliminaries, rejecting the temporary “free” programs such as Norton Anti-virus, and after such a long slumber, Windows initially had 138 updates to install.  It ran all day.  I installed my software, and got my printer/scanner to sync.  Everything set up for Dr. Nerd.

The next day he showed up with his magic tools, popped out the old hard drive, slipped it into his hard drive reader and plugged it into the “new computer” USB.  It got half way through the transfer and then stopped.  Indeed, a bad disk drive.  So we had to resort to my Win 7 complete backup.  It worked even though it was now restoring to a different computer.  All is now well, except for several lost days to all this Sturm und Drang. 

However, Win 8 possibly looms in my future, unless this machine outlasts me. 

I was amused by a tongue in cheek “news article” that appeared in the New Yorker not long ago, about Bill Gates recently “returning to work” being confounded by Windows 8.   The picture of Gates is priceless.

This satirical article was actually picked up by a number of “news sources.”   (If it’s on the Internet it must be true!)  Here’s one such echo published on the “Voice of Russia” web site. (Of all places.)

Nonetheless the basis of all good humor is a full measure of truth. 

Weekend Thoughts

Can you imagine the effrontery of what Georgia's legislature euphemistically calls the "Safe Carry Protection Act"?  Just ask any parent of a child who was at the Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter.

Georgia "Cracker" takes on a new meaning. Crack! Pow! Rat-tat-tat!  To what extreme and at what cost of lives do we take the interpretation of the Second Amendment?  When the Second Amendment became part of the Bill of Rights the reigning weapon was the Musket, accurate perhaps up to the length of a football field, and if you were experienced, perhaps you could get two shots off per minute.  Compare that to today's weapons.  Is that what our Founding Fathers meant, the right of every citizen to carry AK-47s which can fire 600 rounds per minute with a maximum range of 30 football fields?

Georgia takes this to another level. Bring your gun to your favorite bar, have a few drinks, and shoot 'em up!  Then, go to church with your fellow gun-toting religious zealots and pray!  And, bonus time, give a gun to your kid to take to college!

Georgia now joins twenty two other infamous states with some form of "stand your ground" laws as opposed to eighteen states that have laws imposing "a duty to retreat," seemingly a more civilized law that puts the burden on the threatened individual to avoid deadly force where reasonable (like getting the f**k outta there!), only resorting to deadly force where unavoidable, such as being in one's home during an armed home invasion.

I've written about this before, ad nausea. Here's but one of several on the subject that makes the point.  It just seems that in the wake (sadly and certainly no pun intended) of the Newtown, CT tragedy, the NRA has simply put state governments in its powerful lobby cross hairs (pun intended).  Frankly, although I support the second amendment for hunting and target practice, it's dispiriting that we can't have stronger laws to outlaw automatic weapons and institute laws that mandate registering weapons as we must register automobiles (which can be equally lethal).  It's a stain on our legislative resolve (or lack of it to be precise).

On to more amusing reading, actually an extended book review of A Left Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw by David Wolman.  I am among the 10-12% of the world's lefties, and I wear my anomaly with pride.  When younger, they tried to change me to a righty as my handwriting was abysmal.  (Still is.)  But I rebelled in the 5th grade, and almost was "left" back as punishment.  Back then I learned from a Dick Tracy comic book how easily it is to spot a lefty (we normally, but not necessarily, wear our watches on our right wrist). I'm grateful to be a lefty, which was an advantage in many competitive sports, particularly (for me) tennis, baseball and basketball.  Lefties seem to be more prevalent today in those sports. Cream to the top!

Although God himself is obviously right handed (“The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.” Psalms 11), I proudly join my fellow lefties, crazy though some claim us to be. But at least I'm in good company with Albert Einstein and Barack Obama.  It was a fun article to read, certainly more intellectually salubrious than anything relating to the "Safe Carry Protection Act."

On even a more personal note, today is our 44th wedding anniversary.  We were married at the New York Ethical Culture Society, only blocks from Ann's apartment at 33 West 63rd Street and mine at 66 West 85th Street.  Another milestone to be celebrated by a special dinner out tonight.

Blood Moon Thoughts

When I learned that there would be a "Blood Moon" -- actually an eclipse of the moon by the earth's shadow, not becoming completely dark as light bending around the earth and through the atmosphere would give it a reddish color -- I wanted to see and photograph it.  But the eclipse was to occur in the very early morning hours, around 4:00 AM. 

Any photograph I would take with the 20x zoom lens on my little digital, without a tripod, would render it hopelessly unprofessional, so what's the sense I wondered.  Having planted the seed of getting up at that time to experience the eclipse, I thought I'd get the camera ready just in case I was actually awake.  Hopelessly neurotic though, I knew if I did that, I'd probably be up at 2.00 AM waiting, so my decision was just to go to sleep as usual, set no alarm, and enjoy the professional photos I'd see online.

Nonetheless, being but a mere slave to an unforgiving body clock I woke up at precisely 4.00 AM.  Now I had to find my camera, hope the battery was still sufficiently charged (it was), and would be able to get something meaningful with my hand-held. I opened the door to our home's courtyard in the still of the night and beheld the sight of the blood moon.  Impossible to photograph at 20x zoom just standing there, so I took a chair from the area near our pool and sat down and propped my elbow, an improvised tripod.  Still the "target" jumped around on the camera's little LCD screen, trying to lock in the focus.

However, the best part of sitting there was being in the moment, putting down my camera from time to time just to take in the sweeping quiet of the night, not a breath of wind, no sound whatsoever.  Just the Blood Moon, Mars, and the stars and myself looking at the spectacle.  After a while I thought I identified a faint sound, a steady almost imperceptible humming.  It wasn't traffic far off on I95 or the Florida Turnpike -- too early given its continuous nature. It was the electricity running through the wires and transformers on the street, the only man-made sound, not noticeable above the normal din of day. 

Although there are much better photos of the event almost anyplace one searches, I offer up a couple of mine as they are my own record as posted in this modest blog.  I particularly like the one of the moon and mars (to the far right, a little red dot), as it defines our insignificance in relation to the cosmos.

And I'll add this blog to that definition, just a kaleidoscopic record of one person's late-life journey.  I've been writing this, now, for some six and a half years and this entry marks my 400th.  If one searches "blogging" or "writing" among the labels to the left, there is plenty of content as to why I try to keep this up.  It all stems from the title of the blog, the essence of the word, "lacuna."  

The Random Nature of It All

Hat tip (again) to Barry Ritholtz who as a "financial guy" (actually schooled in law) has a logical way of looking at the inexplicable. He puts his spotlight on the recent gyrations of the stock market and the blather of the financial channels --  all constructing a "story" to "explain" sudden up or down moves in what, short term, is really a guessing game.  Media noise --  a  form of cognitive dissonance, contradictory "explanations" some of which appeal to investors and therefore feed the furnace of their convictions.  Which begets even more gyrations. As Ritholtz so accurately puts it: "people create a happy little bubble of delusion."  His article "What's Your Stock Market Story?" is well worth reading and keeping in mind when making one's next trade.

Speaking of the inexplicable, how do we mere mortals understand the consequences of a term that suddenly surfaced on the waters of our online lives: Heartbleed?  Perhaps a binary Loch Ness Monster?  How vulnerable is any online financial transaction or, for that matter, routine things like writing emails or even posting this innocuous blog?  And all of this the result "of a two-year-old programming error?"  Two years and we've all been lulled into a "happy little bubble of delusion" that all those "Secure Sockets Layer" web sites to which we've committed sign-ons, passwords, credit cards, etc. might have all been vulnerable and no one seems to have a full understanding of the consequence.  No consequences?  Armageddon? Somewhere between? A random programming error -- or an intentional one  -- that could have been silently exploited for two years?  Talk about a potential Black Swan. Here's Scientific American's take on it.

On to the random nature of one's career.  Looking back from the so called "golden years" how many can say that his/her career and how it unfolded was one of unsullied choice?  Choices do have to be made, but those are ones circumstances concoct, almost like one's DNA randomly assigned at birth.  I could have ended up as a photographer, a librarian, or even in the insurance business -- there were paths in front of me to each of the foregoing, but I choose publishing, my first job being the result of a chance interview.  From there, I was able to make choices over the next 35 years, but, even then, I was given a random set of options.  Do I choose from behind door #1, #2 or #3?

Once I was running a publishing company, one of the choices I made was to pursue international opportunities.  Japan became one of our largest overseas markets and so I occasionally made trips to Japan, sometimes alone, sometimes with Ann and eventually both of us with our son, Jonathan.  The Japanese culture had a profound impact on us all. 

Fast forward to last night.  All those random choices.  No wonder when our gourmet club was deciding on the next "theme" -- one that was to be held at our home -- we suggested Japanese.  What a feast it was.  Our friend Lois made 3 platters of sushi: delicious fish, tuna, grouper and salmon.  We served a very good chilled saké with that and during dinner which everyone drank and  enjoyed.  Then Susan made authentic Miso soup along with tasty shrimp gyoza.  Gail brought short ribs with a Japanese barbecue sauce and a very refreshing side of cucumber salad. 

Ann made one of my favorites -- a genuine yaki udon dish with a homemade yakisoba sauce, tender pieces of chicken, red pepper, onion, bean sprouts, broccoli, shiitake mushrooms and scallions and of course udon noodles!  She also made traditional sticky rice (enough for twenty people!) along with glazed chicken drumsticks, serving it with a very nice Green Tea in beautiful tea cups that Susan brought.  For dessert, Ann served sweet pineapple and John made Green Tea Ice Cream that was out of this world.  Ann was in her authentic Japanese Happy Coat while our son, Jonathan, had given me some traditional bamboo flute music to play in the background, greatly adding to the evening's atmosphere.

Arigatou!